I remember getting a few of my friends to try G+ with me, then getting in and realizing we were the only ones there. Feels like Lemmy already has more people than that ghost town ever did.

Sometimes you unfortunately have to choose between safety and communication. In this case you chose safety, which even if it didn’t end up being warranted was the right call IMO. Thanks for putting in all the effort.

There are third party launchers you can download for many non-roku smart TVs. I have an android tv that has a god awful interface by default, but I installed FLauncher and haven’t seen a single ad since.

They’re full on tankies - this post with admin responses from Lemmy.ml summarizes it well:

https://lemmy.ml/post/1167199

Basically it illustrates their intent to remove “orientalism,” aka critique of the Chinese government from any western sources, from any community on lemmy.ml. It’s not a great look, but at the end of the day with how the fediverse is set up, they can only control things hosted on lemmy.ml, not any other instances. It’s one of the few reasons I signed up here instead of there. If their politics are a deal breaker for you, all you have to do is not interact on that one instance.